Awkward regifting stories!

[DilemmaADay]

Has anyone ever had a present that they decided to regift, which has come back to bite them?

I've been on the receiving end many moons ago when I worked in my previous job. I got a slightly snooty colleague "Deborah" for secret santa and had no idea what to get her. I got her some chocolates as id seen her chocolate often and some nice hand cream. The next week happened to be another colleagues birthday and she walked onto our department and walked over to "Deborah " and thanked her for the birthday present, before pulling out the chocolates I'd brought Deborah and offering them around....my face must have dropped and Deborah made an excuse and said she liked them sooo much she decided to buy them for the other colleague. I wouldnt have minded at all at her regifting, but the blatant lie made it more awkward so I just pretended it was a stunning coincidence and left work feeling a bit stung. I was only about 21 at the time.

Oh you’d have to have met his mother to know defo not my swearing,,,😂

When we moved into our new home SIL gave us some paper DIY vouchers. They looked very very old. The colour scheme and logo of the DIY store on these vouchers was nothing like the current one. They looked sort of 80's!
We went to the store and checked they were valid before trying to spend them but do you know what, they were totally ok to use and very useful!

My gran gave me a book on makeup for Christmas when I was 16 or so in the late 80's. It was a makeup book from the late 60's in perfect condition. Probably belonging to my auntie who is 20 years older than me. I was so offended as it looked so outdated. I would love to have that book now, the late 60's look is so awesome.

My cousin once got a half used toiletry from his dad and step mum for Christmas

He had left it behind in the house when he had left to go to university ten years earlier.

A few years ago, a friend who is a teacher gave me a box of chocolates wrapped in shiny gold paper for my birthday, which is a few weeks after Christmas. What she didn't realise was that tucked inside the outer gift-wrapping was a gift card, signed by a pupil and his parents, along the lines of "dear Mrs X, thank you for being such a great teacher, merry Christmas, love from xxxx"!

Went to a wedding a couple of weeks before our own wedding. Friends couldn't come to our wedding as they were then on honeymoon, but did send us a gift. Unwrapped the present to find the gift card "To Simon and Laura"....... I guess they had doubled up on their own gifts so regifted. Should have checked for the gift card though!

LOVE this thread! I'm all for regifting if done carefully, just much better than waste but not half used stuff and definitely not back to the same person!

I've always been the same when I think about it. When I was young (about 8/9) I received a birthday present from a friend and I noticed that written onto the wrapping paper in biro was 'to Jennifer and mirabel, happy xmas love from Anna ' (jennifer and mirabel being my friend and her sisters names)
Men and my mum had a bit of a laugh about reusing wrapping paper but even at that age I remember thinking 'what a good idea !!'

@WillSantaBeComingToTownThat made my heart hurt. What a sad sad reason to miss a party.

@ranoutofquinoaandprosecco

Wedding present regifted to us that the giver mustn't have realised had been engraved with their names and their wedding date!

Oh god, I'm starting to feel quite sick now.

When we got married we received two identical silver cake slices, each in a lovely presentation box. A very nice gift but we we were going to be hard-pushed to make use of one, never mind two. DH's colleague got married not long after us so I grabbed one of these to give as a gift but it has never occurred to me until now to have taken it out of the box to check for engraving. And getting it engraved sounds like exactly the type of thing the giver would have done.

I've now checked the other one. No engraving there.

It's been 14 years and we've long lost touch with that couple. What's done is done.

My dsister received a dress from her sil, dsis absolutely hated it, described it in such detail to me, that when she next gifted me something, I opened it, and I immediately recognised the dress to be the one her sil gifted her! I didn't say anything. I was annoyed tho that she would gift me something she herself didn't like, we have similar taste so there was no way I was going to like that.

@Slightlyunhinged I like that idea!! Who wants to store 100s of cards

My mother picked up an elegant, subtle, artisan-crafted vase once, handed it to me and said ‘You can have this if you like. I’ve never liked it much. Can’t think where it came from.’

Thanks mum.
Cost me £50, glad to have it back. You can continue shoving flowers into your 70s mosaic monstrosity.

An ex-friend left his wife for the OW and shortly afterwards his DD was admitted to hospital after breaking her leg
To cheer her up I bought some treats and gave them to him to take in - only for her to mention later "how kind it was of (OW) to give her this"

For context the DD wasn't keen on OW, and he'd passed my gift off as something from her to sweeten things a bit

years ago now but i was working at a christmas fair on one of the stalls saw my MIl pick up a pair of horrid china ash trays in tatty boxes and heard her say this will do for one of them (meaning DILs) yep youve guessed it what did i open on christmas day from her the grotty ash trays and nothing else stingy cow

@Bluntness100

No regifting but my husband when we had been going out about a year or two, bought his mother her fave perfume for christmas. A normal sized bottle. With it came a small size free promo bottle. He gave me the free one. I opened it sitting next to her, on crimbo morning, right after she opened hers.

Was properly awkward.

Me, why have you got me your mums perfume?
Him, well I thought you’d like it
Me, I don’t wear that, that’s your mothers perfume.
Him, I just thought you’d like it, it’s a nice perfume.
Me, and why’s it so small. Shit did you get it free with your mums, it says free sample on it?
Him. Eh, Yes. I just thought it would make a nice gift.
Me, what a free fucking sample of your mothers perfume for crimbo?
Him, alright I made a mistake, I won’t be doing that again.
Me, I don’t want it, give it to your mother, to go with her paid for bottle, I don’t want the fucking free sample..

As his poor mother sat there cringing herself inside out.😂

the only thing to cringe at was how utterly rude you where... thats a private convosation not something you F and blind about in front of your in laws - so trashy.

My family are a bit eccentric so every year we had the same Christmas wrapping paper and gift tags. We were always told to unwrap our presents carefully and then it would be folded up neatly and used vagain the following year also on the gift tags my dad said valways just write merry Christmas and Happy New Year so the gift tag could be used again. I still get alarmed when I see people being profligate with gift wrap

Also a friend routinely gives all the presents her son gets at her birthday to "children less fortunate" personally I find this very offensive and would rather she just said no presents. My DS always spends ages deliberating over what his friends would like.

I never regift on principle

@ruby4ever it was a bit confusing wasn’t it?

My friend gave a little girl a present. That mum tucked the card inside and put it in the cupboard.

My friend’s daughter had her birthday party and that little girl came, and gave the same present back to her that she had received for her birthday. Complete with the birthday card still tucked inside.

Was that clearer?

So she gave it back to the exact people who she got it from, complete with birthday card left inside. How embarrassing.

My MIL gave me a dress for Xmas. It was nice, but not quite my style. To be polite I decided to wear it when we next visited for New Year’s eve. I was slightly horrified when my FIL commented ‘isn’t that the dress I bought you for our anniversary?’ to MIL. I then had to sit there in it all night.....

A friend of mine is known for regifting. My two favourites are when she gave a friend's child a set of pencils with her own daughters name engraved on them and the second time was when she gave a diary type book to another friend's child only to find that her daughter had already filled it out. The second was opened in public and she told off her own daughter for writing in the book!

@TheWashingMachine

Also a friend routinely gives all the presents her son gets at her birthday to "children less fortunate" personally I find this very offensive and would rather she just said no presents. My DS always spends ages deliberating over what his friends would like.

I never regift on principle

I agree, I have never regifted (especially a childs gift, the gift isnt for you let the child have their toy) and I would never randomly attempt to return something to a store either... how do these people not die of embarrasment?

I have gifted things I have won in raffles etc... (got a Brats doll once and I have all boys so gave it to one of their friends who was a girl) but never something some gifted me or my children.

We have a family joke where if my husband does not open and use a present he gets it regifted to himself the following year from us. Once we kept a remote aeroplane his brother had given him going for a few Christmases. Plus a chocolate football with Dad on it that we kept giving back to him up to four years out of date. He got other presents as well but he thought it was hilarious and liked our money saving methods!

@Bluntness100

You were incredibly rude! No wonder your MIL was cringing.

you want her to broach being poor with her friend?!